The New York Times has an article up this morning in which various legal experts talk about the differences between the Barry Bonds trial and the upcoming Roger Clemens trial. Both are for perjury and both are about steroids, but the folks the Times spoke with believe that the fact that Clemens is accused of lying to Congress might make things harder for the prosecutors. The harm — lying to an oddly politically-motivated Congress as opposed to a grand jury in the course of a criminal investigation — may seem more dubious to jurors, they say.

And then there’s the question of, well, the questions:

Michael N. Levy, another former prosecutor, said Clemens might have an advantage because members of Congress were not as skilled as federal prosecutors at questioning witnesses about criminal matters. As a result, his lawyers may be able to raise questions about whether Clemens really lied in response to imprecise questions.

That part seems nuts to me. The entire problem with the Bonds prosecution were the vague and rambling questions. Congress was awful at this when it came to the Sammy Sosa/Mark McGwire/Jose Canseco stuff — in my mind it’s Congress’ awful questioning which allowed Sosa to skate — but when Clemens was under oath he was asked multiple straight forward questions about his steroid use. And he gave multiple straight forward answers. Answers which were directly contradicted by Brian McNamee.

And while, yes, Brian McNamee has his own credibility issues — he’s primed for the always-wonderful “well, were you lying then or are you lying now, Mr. McNamee?” question — the fact that someone will take the stand and call Roger Clemens a liar when no one could do that to Bonds makes all the difference in the world. Enough difference to where I think Clemens is in way, way more trouble than Bonds, regardless of the identity of the people he lied to.

The Cardinals have officially signed outfielder Dexter Fowler to a five-year, $82.5 million contract. Fowler will also get a full no-trade clause.

The Cardinals gave Fowler a bigger deal than many speculated he’d get, as some reports predicted he’d get something in the $52-72 million range. His skills, however — he’s a fantastic leadoff hitter who plays a premium defensive position — definitely earned him some major dough. Fowler hit .276/.393/.447 with 13 homers, 48 RBI and 13 steals over 125 games in 2016 for the World Series champion Cubs.

For the Cardinals, this will allow Matt Carpenter to move down to the middle of the batting order and will shift Randal Grichuk to left field. It also takes a prime piece from the Cardinals’ biggest rival. For their part, earlier this offseason the Cubs signed former Cardinal center fielder Jon Jay. So that’s fun.

The Cardinals have always emphasized building from within. In the 2016-17 offseason, however, they may end up being one of the bigger free agent buyers. At least according to some informed speculation.

The Cardinals are already losing their first round pick due to the Fowler signing, so any other top free agent won’t cost them more than the money he’s owed. And as far as money goes, the Cardinals have a great deal of it, despite being a small market team. They have a billion dollar TV deal coming online and Matt Holliday and Jaime Garcia are off the payroll now. Spending big on a free agent or three would not cripple them or anything.

Encarnacion or Trumbo would be first baseman, which wold fly in the face of the Cards’ move of Matt Carpenter to first base (and, at least as far as Encarnacion goes, would fly in the face of good defense). Getting either of them would push Carpenter back to second, displacing Kolten Wong, or over to third, displacing Jhonny Peralta. If you’re going to do that, I’d say that Turner would make more sense, but what do I know?

Either way, the Cardinals may be entering a pretty interesting phase of their offseason now. And an unfamiliar one as, quite possibly, the top free agent buyer on the market.